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Now before I let you read this interview I tought I would let you all know something!! before we see the final of The Betfred.com World Snooker Championships on the TV we will be testing something out with Rob Walker on The Forum!!! more on that in a few days tough.
ferret
Right and here it is a Interview with Rob Walker.
First of all Rob Walker thanks very much for agreeing to be interviewed- I know it is a bit out of your schedule and how busy you are throughout this tournament.
First being are the MC - your job to get the crowd going, excited before a game- just tell me how you came by the actual job itself
Well, it was a bit of luck really, I had been working for the BBC for about four years as a behind the camera guy and then I left to pursue reporting. And I think it was about November 2007 I got a phone call from the BBC saying that someone from World Snooker had phoned the Beeb to say we desperatly need to find a new MC and they asked the BBC for recommendations and they said try this guy Rob Walker because I had my licence as a boxing MC for about 3 years. I don't do a huge amount of it but I quite like working with live crowds and the BBC knew that so I think they just thought we'll put World Snooker in touch with Rob and see how it goes so Mike Ganley rang me, he asked me to do the 2007 at Telford as a trial and he said right if we like you at that one we'll get you back for Wembley which they did, he said right if we like you at Newport and we'll get you for the worlds. So then I did Newport and then I did the Worlds and signed up properly last summer so yes it has been a bit of a lucky break really because I'm a reporter. This is the only MC'ing I do and those two are different skills obviously but I do enjoy working with live crowds and yeah I kind of enjoyed it right from the start and thought if I can I want to keep this going
There's more to it than people realise, You have to sit down and write your intros for the players- and the other part of it is that making sure it concise and for want of a better word snappy.
Yeah, you want to make sure, first and formost you have to get your facts right I always check my scripts with the press guys, with Ivan and the world snooker guys before I go out. I've made a couple of mistakes over the last 18months but not many because I check my facts and if there is one thing that is going to annoy a player is if you get their facts wrong. So once you have got an idea it has got to be fairly concise as you say and it has got to be fun, you know you could argue and some people do think that my stuff is too cheesy but as far as I'm concerned as long as the players enjoy the introductions that I do I'm not really bothered what anyone else thinks because they are the most important people in this whole thing. Without the players you haven't got a sport and I want every player, however low down the rankings they are, however big they are I want them to feel great when they walk out at the Masters,at Newport, at Telford and especially here at the World Championships.I want them to get that tingle down their spine and at the same time I want the people waiting to see them to get excited to remind them that Ronnie O'Sullivan is a three time World Champion, to remind them that Stephen Hendry has won 36 ranking event titles and that John Higgins won his first ranking event title on home soil in Glasgow last October. I want people in the crowd to remember that and go wow this is a great sport and we are going to enjoy this
It is part selling of the sport isn't it
Oh hugely yeah, it is the one time in a match where people can make noise really, other than someone nails a 147 and the whole place goes nuts but it is different to darts, I think if I'm totally honest I think more could be done to make it more entertaining but obviously that would have to be done without distracting the players when they are in action but it is a great sport and it does have a huge following especially on the continent in Europe and it is a question of trying to translate that into what's going on here because the players want venues bagged out every session and so do I. It is a nightmare if you go out say you have got to give it the big one, give a player a massive introduction and you are in a huge arena with about 150 people there dotted all over the place it doesn't quite work. But when you get at tight compact arena, say Telford the final itself was great because they aren't that many people there but it is compact and the response the players get when they come out is huge, so it is about entertaining and it is about letting people at home know that these guys, you know they may not be as wild away from the table as the blokes in the 80s who were getting up to all sorts but they still have great personalities and that needs to be sold
About being the MC when the cameras come on to you, you are live, you have got to get it right first time
Yeah I mean it is a unique thing to have to do bcause I think it only works if you get the live audience in the arena on your side- you need them to convince the people at home, sitting in front of a little box to stay tuned those are two different skills but I think if you get the live audience on your side you've cracked it at home because when you say once in a while let's get the boys on the baize and you can hear if you are sitting at home and see the audience in the auditorium getting up for it you are going to suddenly pay more attention. It is not easy, it looks easy and it doesn't take very long but it does require a lot of concentration and you do have to hold your nerve because you are about to go live on TV are there however many people in the auditorium watching your every word basically as you deliver to the camera so you do get butterflies sometimes but you've got to remember it's fun and you know you hopefully rehearse a few things in the mind before you do go out and then you just get on with it
You are now hosting Snooker on the Red as well. Tell me are you enjoying being back in the presenters chair now
Yeah it is good because I am a presenter and a reporter. This is the only context here at the snooker where I work as a MC so it nice to get back to some journalism beit presenting on the red button or doing the flash interviews in front of the list of champions board immediately as the players come out of the arena. That I really enjoy as well because it is getting back to reporting so it's been a lot busier for me this time but it has been more filling because I enjoy the MC'ing but I am a broadcaster first and formost but doing the two in tandem is really enjoyable
Well we saw plenty a lot of you last year at the Olympics at Qingdong for the sailing and yachting events- you were the man on the scene and basically alongside all the competitiors in a boat yourself. It must have been the most amazing feeling being the first man to speak to Ben Ainslie, the Yngling girls. You can't get better than that- being the first man on the job
No and you have just summed it up brilliantly- it was the most exhilarating reward in broadcasting that I have ever done in my entire career. I have been working for ten years. I know that is nowhere near as long as some broadcasters but of all the things I have done, of all the countries that I have been to of all the people I have interviewed it was just phenomenal. As you say to be the first person, to look into the whites of someone's eyes and see their first wild, initial, spontaneous reaction to winning an Olympic gold medal or winning Olympic bronze medal or a silver is a privilige that no broadcaster, reporter, writer should ever take for granted. You know it was right place right time; my job was as you say literally was sat in a dinghy and as soon as they crossed the line within a minute we were rowing alongside them doing live interviews and it doesn't get much more enjoyable than that. It was very draining. I was mentally shattered when I got home I have never been so tired because it required an enormous amount of concentration if you are floating around the water for six hours a day in quite hot weather not eating much and I had never covered sailing before the Olympics, never, so I had to do a lot of homework before I went to China and obviously I was having to do the sort of calculations stuff in my head as I was watching the races unfold to be able to chip in halfway through a race and sound like I was having something worth listening to. But yeah it was a really really amazing experience and I was very lucky to get that opportunity.
Just as well you don't suffer from any sea sickness then
Well I tell you what I only realised that by doing the job I mean that was pure luck. Had I been severely sea sick it would have been a disaster and nobody ever asked me that do you get seasick- I never thought about it and perhaps it was rough a few days and I was one of only a few people to not get sick out on the water but it could've be that I was mentally not going to allow that to happen. I might get seasick but I was lucky I did not get seasick out there because the job I was doing it was too important for me to be lying in the bottom of a boat feeling like the world spinning round. I just couldn't be in that position.
You have built up quite a CV in terms of the documentaries that you have done as well. Diary of a Tourist at the World Cup.
Yeah I did this thing three years ago- time goes so quickly now- I came up with this idea of trying to convey the excitement of the football world cup from a slightly different perspective to the stuff you normally get. When you have a football world cup especially if you have one in England or Britain it seems every possible angle to England is rammed down your throat and people want to hear it- they want to see all the excitement but what you never get or didn't get up to that point was you never saw a glimpse of the excitement in the opposition country. What I mean by that is obviously the world cup was in Germany, but England's first opposition was against Paraguay so I thought , I'm pretty sure that no one is going to send a reporter to Paraguay, to see how excited they are about taking on England the next day and because I can use cameras and I can self edit. I mean it is difficult I'm not great at but enough to get by I thought right why don't I do a one man band and i will do Diary of a World Cup Tourist. So I started in Paraguay then I went to Trinidad, then Sweden, then Ecuador and then finally Portugal where England got knocked out on penalties. But that was a crazy experience because I was totally on my own everywhere. I had a fixer in all the countries. Paraguay and Ecuador I had a fixer because I couldn't speak Spanish and yeah it was just a crazy experience I did a preview piece I'd go round sampling the excitement, the banter and the energy and what people thought about it and then I'd send the pictures to Germany and they'd turn it into a piece so I got some stuff on Match of the Day during the football world cup of those pieces. I think I flew something like 40,000 miles on 27 flights in 17 days. I mean I was absolutley dead on my feet at the end of that but it was a great experience
I was going to say that even though the hours maybe tiring if you are doing something that you love you don't notice it do you
Not to start with no, but I think on something like that you do eventually get tired and it took me a while to get over that one and when I was on my own and I was thinking camera work, presenting, scripts, interviewees all that sort of stuff. But it was good fun and I think my ethos about work- I am not everyone's cup of tea on television, you are never going to please everybody, and the moment you start trying , you have already lost. But what I do on TV is excitement. I am someone who naturally and generally gets excited in those type of situations. And that is what I try to convey to people who haven't got the opportunity to be in those places I want them to know that I know that it is a privelige for me to be there and to get a sense of wow this is fantastic we are floating around on the water you know I think one of my final lines in China was something like A few drops of the China Sea will be forever British, you know trying to convey the magnitude of what had been done and the excitement of being there, you know if you are lucky enough to work on TV and if sport is your thing and you are able to make a living out of being a sports reporter or a sports presenter or commentator then you need to remember that is privelege and more than that you need to remember that it is fun. And that's the bottom line. And that's what I am about and it genuinally doesn't bother me if few people put on websites and that this guy is over the top, he's too cheesy la la la. It doesn't bother me because I can only be who I am and if people like it that's fantastic and if they don't they wont watch it
Can't please everyone
Absolutley not
With all the working and the travelling how do you find time to relax and unwind
Mmm it is not easy when you are self employed because no one else is going to answer the phone for you and emails have to be answered even when you are on holiday so I do find it that I am finding it increasingly difficult to relax but I am just in the process of signing up with an agent who will obviously help me to pick and choose work a bit more and to make sure that I do get rest because the style that I have on camera I have to be rested in order to do that because it takes a lot of energy out of you to be like that on TV. So yeah it is not easy. My sort of bolthole if you like is a place I go and stay at in Devon, a little one bedroom cottage I suppose you'd call it in North Devon and I go there five or six days a few times a year and that is literally what I call my plug-in time. I go down there, I go for a run in the morning and then sit all day watching DVDs and then I go down the pub for my dinner, have a few pints of Guinness and then go to bed at nine o clock and I do that for a week and when I come back I think right OK I'm ready again now- what's next
Sounds absolutley perfect- a few DVD's and then down the pub- brilliant
Yeah- exactly
I have heard a rumour, that you practice your MC'ing in the shower- Is it true
Oh My God- who told you that, who told you that. That is brilliant- er I know, I think I know where that might have come from I don't know the individual concerned but erm I do yeah I do talk in the shower - but yeah I suppose from time to time the sound in showers must reverberate out to corridoors-I will stand there go over my first line, ladies and gentlemen what a line up we have today for you ladies and gentleman. You do it without thinking really. So yes I do do that
Well I plead guilty to that myself Rob as I do I am practicing shirt numbers in the shower as well. I do football commentary so I'm memorising shirt number and the shirt names- I'm sure there are people who think I'm doolally tap
Yes I do do that. I do do that
You also have a great amount of charity work over in Africa, and you have taken part in 4 Great Ethiopian races
Yeah. The Great Ethiopian run is an amazing race. It is a ten kilometre race in the centre of Addis Ababa. And it's not really designed to produce Olympic champions in Ethiopia it is designed to be a celebration of Ethiopian distance running because they have been and will probably be for many years to come the dominant force in global distance running on the track and more recently in marathons as well and athletics, if I'm totally honest athletics is my first love. I've grown up eating it, breathing it, sleeping it and yes every year I'm asked to go and run in it and do some features for BBC World and some TV stuff about this run it is amazing every year there is about 30-35,000 people, There are three main colours of the Ethiopian flag, there is bright red, bright green, bright yellow and a bit of black on the outside. But the three primary colours are red, yellow and green and each year the organisers pick one of those colours and everbody who runs in the race gets an identical T-Shirt, made of one of those three colours. November 2008 was red, and you have got 30,000 people running down really tight roads and it is like a sea of red or as I think as I said at the time is like a red river of humanity but absolutley amazing. Great place to go because East Africa is so much more than the stuff that you read in the papers, you know I'm quite passionate about Africa because I think still in this modern age when so many people travel all over the world there is so much ignorance about when it comes to Africa. Yes there is AIDS, Yes there is famine, Yes there is corruption and yes there is Civil War but to look at countries in East Africa for only that is so one dimensional. There is a hell of a lot more than that going on and also what rarely gets conveyed on television and on media in general back in Britain is the amount of joy and happiness there are in those countries. It is bizarre, how happy people can be when they have got nothing I mean not in all cases obviously but you know in numbers. I have been to Africa about 15-16 times in the last couple of years and everytime you go there it has a habit of shocking you in a great way for a lot of people it is if the sun is shining, you have something to eat that day and you feel healthy and some clothes on your body, you're happy- it is that simple and I think a lot of people from this side of the world could learn valuable lessons especially at the moment where people in the Western world are going to suffer as a result of this credit crunch to varying degrees- but still that is not to belittle those who lose their homes or can't pay their mortgages or that sort of stuff but still in comparitive terms even the hardship that many families in Britain will go through as a result of the credit crunch is still not a patch on what's going on in Africa- and they find a way to be happy so maybe we might be able to learn a couple of lessons from that.
I was going to say- kind of puts everything in perspective doesn't it
Oh big time, big time I mean I do a trip once every year to Kenya and Uganda where I take half a dozen kids from around the UK who come from difficult backgrounds- some you know might have got mixed up with drugs, others may have just dropped out of school and sort of got sucked into a general mallaise about life where they don't believe opportunites are going to fall from them and others quite frankly need a kick up the arse but they all deserve a chance because you know barring serious crime everybody deserves a second chance especially if you 18 or 19 you have got you whole life ahead of you- yes so anyway I do the trip it is designed to be a break from their problems at home, It is designed to be an eye opener above anything else- take them to a completley different culture and completely different situation where they have to work together, you know do each others meals and many of them just don't have any routine in life whatsoever so they have got to cook,they have to understand, going to bed, getting up simple things a lot of the people in the UK take for granted but a lot of youngsters- some youngsters have not been through those basic things that you eat together, someone has got to prepare food and then apart from all the domestic stuff we go and work in schools we paint orphanages, we build walls lay football pitches, organise fun-runs, football matches and generally I just get them to roll their sleeves up and try and contribute to the orphanages and schools we go to on the way and yeah hopefully they come back with renewed confidence about their own lives and an understanding that an opportunity is a privilege not a right
So really the Jambo Jambo tours are about team bonding and building
Erm yeh - It obviously helps if they as a group get on well - it is a nightmare if they don't. But It is about the individuals who go coming home feeling different about themselves and the opportunities that may have been staring them in face but they either couldn't be bothered to try for or didn't see their own ability to get to that level so yeah the bonding part is important but it's just about them coming about them coming home and saying this is not how my life is going to play out things are going to be different for me. I am going to do A,B,C and X,Y,Z to make sure I bloody well get there
So really it is teaching them the values of taking responsibility
Yeah I suppose if you want to say that yeah- Just making them realise that within reason you can be who you want to be. I do believe it is easy for someone like me to say that who came from a loving home and had a great education but in lots of cases the biggest barrier young people have is that which is in their mind not that which is in reality and once they start believing it themselves all sorts of doors and opportunites will come that previously weren't there because they just didn't see them even when they were staring them in the face
Rob I can only say thankyou very much for taking the time to speak to me and very best of luck to you and your career in the future
Yeah thanks very much I look forward to seeing it on line
Suzy Jardine
ferret
Right and here it is a Interview with Rob Walker.
First of all Rob Walker thanks very much for agreeing to be interviewed- I know it is a bit out of your schedule and how busy you are throughout this tournament.
First being are the MC - your job to get the crowd going, excited before a game- just tell me how you came by the actual job itself
Well, it was a bit of luck really, I had been working for the BBC for about four years as a behind the camera guy and then I left to pursue reporting. And I think it was about November 2007 I got a phone call from the BBC saying that someone from World Snooker had phoned the Beeb to say we desperatly need to find a new MC and they asked the BBC for recommendations and they said try this guy Rob Walker because I had my licence as a boxing MC for about 3 years. I don't do a huge amount of it but I quite like working with live crowds and the BBC knew that so I think they just thought we'll put World Snooker in touch with Rob and see how it goes so Mike Ganley rang me, he asked me to do the 2007 at Telford as a trial and he said right if we like you at that one we'll get you back for Wembley which they did, he said right if we like you at Newport and we'll get you for the worlds. So then I did Newport and then I did the Worlds and signed up properly last summer so yes it has been a bit of a lucky break really because I'm a reporter. This is the only MC'ing I do and those two are different skills obviously but I do enjoy working with live crowds and yeah I kind of enjoyed it right from the start and thought if I can I want to keep this going
There's more to it than people realise, You have to sit down and write your intros for the players- and the other part of it is that making sure it concise and for want of a better word snappy.
Yeah, you want to make sure, first and formost you have to get your facts right I always check my scripts with the press guys, with Ivan and the world snooker guys before I go out. I've made a couple of mistakes over the last 18months but not many because I check my facts and if there is one thing that is going to annoy a player is if you get their facts wrong. So once you have got an idea it has got to be fairly concise as you say and it has got to be fun, you know you could argue and some people do think that my stuff is too cheesy but as far as I'm concerned as long as the players enjoy the introductions that I do I'm not really bothered what anyone else thinks because they are the most important people in this whole thing. Without the players you haven't got a sport and I want every player, however low down the rankings they are, however big they are I want them to feel great when they walk out at the Masters,at Newport, at Telford and especially here at the World Championships.I want them to get that tingle down their spine and at the same time I want the people waiting to see them to get excited to remind them that Ronnie O'Sullivan is a three time World Champion, to remind them that Stephen Hendry has won 36 ranking event titles and that John Higgins won his first ranking event title on home soil in Glasgow last October. I want people in the crowd to remember that and go wow this is a great sport and we are going to enjoy this
It is part selling of the sport isn't it
Oh hugely yeah, it is the one time in a match where people can make noise really, other than someone nails a 147 and the whole place goes nuts but it is different to darts, I think if I'm totally honest I think more could be done to make it more entertaining but obviously that would have to be done without distracting the players when they are in action but it is a great sport and it does have a huge following especially on the continent in Europe and it is a question of trying to translate that into what's going on here because the players want venues bagged out every session and so do I. It is a nightmare if you go out say you have got to give it the big one, give a player a massive introduction and you are in a huge arena with about 150 people there dotted all over the place it doesn't quite work. But when you get at tight compact arena, say Telford the final itself was great because they aren't that many people there but it is compact and the response the players get when they come out is huge, so it is about entertaining and it is about letting people at home know that these guys, you know they may not be as wild away from the table as the blokes in the 80s who were getting up to all sorts but they still have great personalities and that needs to be sold
About being the MC when the cameras come on to you, you are live, you have got to get it right first time
Yeah I mean it is a unique thing to have to do bcause I think it only works if you get the live audience in the arena on your side- you need them to convince the people at home, sitting in front of a little box to stay tuned those are two different skills but I think if you get the live audience on your side you've cracked it at home because when you say once in a while let's get the boys on the baize and you can hear if you are sitting at home and see the audience in the auditorium getting up for it you are going to suddenly pay more attention. It is not easy, it looks easy and it doesn't take very long but it does require a lot of concentration and you do have to hold your nerve because you are about to go live on TV are there however many people in the auditorium watching your every word basically as you deliver to the camera so you do get butterflies sometimes but you've got to remember it's fun and you know you hopefully rehearse a few things in the mind before you do go out and then you just get on with it
You are now hosting Snooker on the Red as well. Tell me are you enjoying being back in the presenters chair now
Yeah it is good because I am a presenter and a reporter. This is the only context here at the snooker where I work as a MC so it nice to get back to some journalism beit presenting on the red button or doing the flash interviews in front of the list of champions board immediately as the players come out of the arena. That I really enjoy as well because it is getting back to reporting so it's been a lot busier for me this time but it has been more filling because I enjoy the MC'ing but I am a broadcaster first and formost but doing the two in tandem is really enjoyable
Well we saw plenty a lot of you last year at the Olympics at Qingdong for the sailing and yachting events- you were the man on the scene and basically alongside all the competitiors in a boat yourself. It must have been the most amazing feeling being the first man to speak to Ben Ainslie, the Yngling girls. You can't get better than that- being the first man on the job
No and you have just summed it up brilliantly- it was the most exhilarating reward in broadcasting that I have ever done in my entire career. I have been working for ten years. I know that is nowhere near as long as some broadcasters but of all the things I have done, of all the countries that I have been to of all the people I have interviewed it was just phenomenal. As you say to be the first person, to look into the whites of someone's eyes and see their first wild, initial, spontaneous reaction to winning an Olympic gold medal or winning Olympic bronze medal or a silver is a privilige that no broadcaster, reporter, writer should ever take for granted. You know it was right place right time; my job was as you say literally was sat in a dinghy and as soon as they crossed the line within a minute we were rowing alongside them doing live interviews and it doesn't get much more enjoyable than that. It was very draining. I was mentally shattered when I got home I have never been so tired because it required an enormous amount of concentration if you are floating around the water for six hours a day in quite hot weather not eating much and I had never covered sailing before the Olympics, never, so I had to do a lot of homework before I went to China and obviously I was having to do the sort of calculations stuff in my head as I was watching the races unfold to be able to chip in halfway through a race and sound like I was having something worth listening to. But yeah it was a really really amazing experience and I was very lucky to get that opportunity.
Just as well you don't suffer from any sea sickness then
Well I tell you what I only realised that by doing the job I mean that was pure luck. Had I been severely sea sick it would have been a disaster and nobody ever asked me that do you get seasick- I never thought about it and perhaps it was rough a few days and I was one of only a few people to not get sick out on the water but it could've be that I was mentally not going to allow that to happen. I might get seasick but I was lucky I did not get seasick out there because the job I was doing it was too important for me to be lying in the bottom of a boat feeling like the world spinning round. I just couldn't be in that position.
You have built up quite a CV in terms of the documentaries that you have done as well. Diary of a Tourist at the World Cup.
Yeah I did this thing three years ago- time goes so quickly now- I came up with this idea of trying to convey the excitement of the football world cup from a slightly different perspective to the stuff you normally get. When you have a football world cup especially if you have one in England or Britain it seems every possible angle to England is rammed down your throat and people want to hear it- they want to see all the excitement but what you never get or didn't get up to that point was you never saw a glimpse of the excitement in the opposition country. What I mean by that is obviously the world cup was in Germany, but England's first opposition was against Paraguay so I thought , I'm pretty sure that no one is going to send a reporter to Paraguay, to see how excited they are about taking on England the next day and because I can use cameras and I can self edit. I mean it is difficult I'm not great at but enough to get by I thought right why don't I do a one man band and i will do Diary of a World Cup Tourist. So I started in Paraguay then I went to Trinidad, then Sweden, then Ecuador and then finally Portugal where England got knocked out on penalties. But that was a crazy experience because I was totally on my own everywhere. I had a fixer in all the countries. Paraguay and Ecuador I had a fixer because I couldn't speak Spanish and yeah it was just a crazy experience I did a preview piece I'd go round sampling the excitement, the banter and the energy and what people thought about it and then I'd send the pictures to Germany and they'd turn it into a piece so I got some stuff on Match of the Day during the football world cup of those pieces. I think I flew something like 40,000 miles on 27 flights in 17 days. I mean I was absolutley dead on my feet at the end of that but it was a great experience
I was going to say that even though the hours maybe tiring if you are doing something that you love you don't notice it do you
Not to start with no, but I think on something like that you do eventually get tired and it took me a while to get over that one and when I was on my own and I was thinking camera work, presenting, scripts, interviewees all that sort of stuff. But it was good fun and I think my ethos about work- I am not everyone's cup of tea on television, you are never going to please everybody, and the moment you start trying , you have already lost. But what I do on TV is excitement. I am someone who naturally and generally gets excited in those type of situations. And that is what I try to convey to people who haven't got the opportunity to be in those places I want them to know that I know that it is a privelige for me to be there and to get a sense of wow this is fantastic we are floating around on the water you know I think one of my final lines in China was something like A few drops of the China Sea will be forever British, you know trying to convey the magnitude of what had been done and the excitement of being there, you know if you are lucky enough to work on TV and if sport is your thing and you are able to make a living out of being a sports reporter or a sports presenter or commentator then you need to remember that is privelege and more than that you need to remember that it is fun. And that's the bottom line. And that's what I am about and it genuinally doesn't bother me if few people put on websites and that this guy is over the top, he's too cheesy la la la. It doesn't bother me because I can only be who I am and if people like it that's fantastic and if they don't they wont watch it
Can't please everyone
Absolutley not
With all the working and the travelling how do you find time to relax and unwind
Mmm it is not easy when you are self employed because no one else is going to answer the phone for you and emails have to be answered even when you are on holiday so I do find it that I am finding it increasingly difficult to relax but I am just in the process of signing up with an agent who will obviously help me to pick and choose work a bit more and to make sure that I do get rest because the style that I have on camera I have to be rested in order to do that because it takes a lot of energy out of you to be like that on TV. So yeah it is not easy. My sort of bolthole if you like is a place I go and stay at in Devon, a little one bedroom cottage I suppose you'd call it in North Devon and I go there five or six days a few times a year and that is literally what I call my plug-in time. I go down there, I go for a run in the morning and then sit all day watching DVDs and then I go down the pub for my dinner, have a few pints of Guinness and then go to bed at nine o clock and I do that for a week and when I come back I think right OK I'm ready again now- what's next
Sounds absolutley perfect- a few DVD's and then down the pub- brilliant
Yeah- exactly
I have heard a rumour, that you practice your MC'ing in the shower- Is it true
Oh My God- who told you that, who told you that. That is brilliant- er I know, I think I know where that might have come from I don't know the individual concerned but erm I do yeah I do talk in the shower - but yeah I suppose from time to time the sound in showers must reverberate out to corridoors-I will stand there go over my first line, ladies and gentlemen what a line up we have today for you ladies and gentleman. You do it without thinking really. So yes I do do that
Well I plead guilty to that myself Rob as I do I am practicing shirt numbers in the shower as well. I do football commentary so I'm memorising shirt number and the shirt names- I'm sure there are people who think I'm doolally tap
Yes I do do that. I do do that
You also have a great amount of charity work over in Africa, and you have taken part in 4 Great Ethiopian races
Yeah. The Great Ethiopian run is an amazing race. It is a ten kilometre race in the centre of Addis Ababa. And it's not really designed to produce Olympic champions in Ethiopia it is designed to be a celebration of Ethiopian distance running because they have been and will probably be for many years to come the dominant force in global distance running on the track and more recently in marathons as well and athletics, if I'm totally honest athletics is my first love. I've grown up eating it, breathing it, sleeping it and yes every year I'm asked to go and run in it and do some features for BBC World and some TV stuff about this run it is amazing every year there is about 30-35,000 people, There are three main colours of the Ethiopian flag, there is bright red, bright green, bright yellow and a bit of black on the outside. But the three primary colours are red, yellow and green and each year the organisers pick one of those colours and everbody who runs in the race gets an identical T-Shirt, made of one of those three colours. November 2008 was red, and you have got 30,000 people running down really tight roads and it is like a sea of red or as I think as I said at the time is like a red river of humanity but absolutley amazing. Great place to go because East Africa is so much more than the stuff that you read in the papers, you know I'm quite passionate about Africa because I think still in this modern age when so many people travel all over the world there is so much ignorance about when it comes to Africa. Yes there is AIDS, Yes there is famine, Yes there is corruption and yes there is Civil War but to look at countries in East Africa for only that is so one dimensional. There is a hell of a lot more than that going on and also what rarely gets conveyed on television and on media in general back in Britain is the amount of joy and happiness there are in those countries. It is bizarre, how happy people can be when they have got nothing I mean not in all cases obviously but you know in numbers. I have been to Africa about 15-16 times in the last couple of years and everytime you go there it has a habit of shocking you in a great way for a lot of people it is if the sun is shining, you have something to eat that day and you feel healthy and some clothes on your body, you're happy- it is that simple and I think a lot of people from this side of the world could learn valuable lessons especially at the moment where people in the Western world are going to suffer as a result of this credit crunch to varying degrees- but still that is not to belittle those who lose their homes or can't pay their mortgages or that sort of stuff but still in comparitive terms even the hardship that many families in Britain will go through as a result of the credit crunch is still not a patch on what's going on in Africa- and they find a way to be happy so maybe we might be able to learn a couple of lessons from that.
I was going to say- kind of puts everything in perspective doesn't it
Oh big time, big time I mean I do a trip once every year to Kenya and Uganda where I take half a dozen kids from around the UK who come from difficult backgrounds- some you know might have got mixed up with drugs, others may have just dropped out of school and sort of got sucked into a general mallaise about life where they don't believe opportunites are going to fall from them and others quite frankly need a kick up the arse but they all deserve a chance because you know barring serious crime everybody deserves a second chance especially if you 18 or 19 you have got you whole life ahead of you- yes so anyway I do the trip it is designed to be a break from their problems at home, It is designed to be an eye opener above anything else- take them to a completley different culture and completely different situation where they have to work together, you know do each others meals and many of them just don't have any routine in life whatsoever so they have got to cook,they have to understand, going to bed, getting up simple things a lot of the people in the UK take for granted but a lot of youngsters- some youngsters have not been through those basic things that you eat together, someone has got to prepare food and then apart from all the domestic stuff we go and work in schools we paint orphanages, we build walls lay football pitches, organise fun-runs, football matches and generally I just get them to roll their sleeves up and try and contribute to the orphanages and schools we go to on the way and yeah hopefully they come back with renewed confidence about their own lives and an understanding that an opportunity is a privilege not a right
So really the Jambo Jambo tours are about team bonding and building
Erm yeh - It obviously helps if they as a group get on well - it is a nightmare if they don't. But It is about the individuals who go coming home feeling different about themselves and the opportunities that may have been staring them in face but they either couldn't be bothered to try for or didn't see their own ability to get to that level so yeah the bonding part is important but it's just about them coming about them coming home and saying this is not how my life is going to play out things are going to be different for me. I am going to do A,B,C and X,Y,Z to make sure I bloody well get there
So really it is teaching them the values of taking responsibility
Yeah I suppose if you want to say that yeah- Just making them realise that within reason you can be who you want to be. I do believe it is easy for someone like me to say that who came from a loving home and had a great education but in lots of cases the biggest barrier young people have is that which is in their mind not that which is in reality and once they start believing it themselves all sorts of doors and opportunites will come that previously weren't there because they just didn't see them even when they were staring them in the face
Rob I can only say thankyou very much for taking the time to speak to me and very best of luck to you and your career in the future
Yeah thanks very much I look forward to seeing it on line
Suzy Jardine
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